


The Sky But Air

by Rubynye



Category: Star Trek XI
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-10
Updated: 2010-01-10
Packaged: 2017-10-06 02:45:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 931
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/48845
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rubynye/pseuds/Rubynye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Knowing for herself is, of course, one thing. Convincing her mother is another.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Sky But Air

Title: The Sky But Air  
Fandom: Star Trek XI  
Rating: PG at most  
Pairing: George Kirk / Winona Kirk discussed.  
Summary: Knowing for herself is, of course, one thing. Convincing her mother is another.  
Prompt: [Now they see sky, and they remember what they are.](http://community.livejournal.com/where_no_woman/34236.html)  
Content Advisory: Het alluded to, children alluded to, canon character death mentioned.  
Acknowledgements: [](http://igrockspock.livejournal.com/profile)[**igrockspock**](http://igrockspock.livejournal.com/) for the drabblefest.  
_Disclaimer:_ None of these characters or their settings belong to me.  
Title from [Wicked Little Town](http://www.stlyrics.com/lyrics/hedwigandtheangryinch/wickedlittletowntommygnosisversion.htm), Tommy Gnosis's version.

 

Winona can deal with her mother's anger. Children piss their parents off, it's what they do, and she and Mom had some epic battles during her adolescence. What she can't deal with, what makes her eyes ache with burgeoning tears, is watching her mother look at her with fearful eyes, watching her mother's hands twist together because she's too upset to realize she's wringing them. She bites her lip and turns away towards the window, looking at the sky.

This time of year, this time of day, it's a bright arc of blue infinity, as if lit by all the stars, not just Sol. Winona woke up to that sky one morning and simply knew as it filled her eyes that the nightmares had lost their grip on her, that she had to get back up there.

Knowing for herself is, of course, one thing. Convincing her mother is another. Winona sets a hand on the smooth white paint of the windowsill and tries again. "Mom, I know you think I'm being impulsive, but I've thought about it, I really have. I can do more out there than I can here. Not just for me, for the boys."

Mom's "Don't lie to me, Winona," is sharp enough to open a thousand childhood scars. "And don't lie to yourself. Your children need their mother."

_They need a mother who's not dying by centimeters under the sky,_ Winona thinks. If she says that her Mom will accuse her, rightly, of melodrama. George understood this... but George is gone, and she feels her mouth twist on that thought. Instead she says, "They need a home, which they have here, with you. And they need everything I can earn for them in Starfleet."

"If you want a job, Cochrane Tech would kill to have you--"

"No, Mom." Winona presses both hands on the windowsill, feeling the hard wood bite into her palms. "Not Cochrane Tech, not anything down here. Everything I'm trained to do is up in space." The life Winona worked for, the life she built with George, it's up in space. She can't have it back, she can't have him back, but she can have enough, she can have more than quarterly science journals and the conversation of people who wouldn't know the Main Sequence from Main Street.

"What about what you were born to do? What about staying alive for the people who need you?" Winona feels like her heart is falling open under her mother's razored words, like she's bleeding into her chest cavity, but she can't fail to hear her mother bleeding just as badly, or worse. She can't keep from remembering the day she stepped off the shuttle holding a little bundle of Jim, the way her mother had wrapped them in shaking arms, kissed her hair and muttered, "You're alive, Winnie, you're alive," even though all she could do was cry, because George isn't.

George understood space, the way Winona's parents never did, the way no one around her does. She's being selfish, she knows. She also knows she has to be. "Ten years ago I told you I wouldn't die," Winona offers, meaning it as rueful agreement.

Her mother doesn't hear it. "Well, I imagine George told his mother that too."

Winona winces, and the window rattles under her fist. "You don't get to say that to me. Not when I watched him die." Behind her, she can hear her mother's rough breathing. "To save everyone. To save Jim, and me."

Four harsh breaths, and Mom says slowly, "I'm... I'm sorry, Winona. You're right. That was uncalled for."

Winona takes two deep breaths of her own. "You're right, too." She turns to face her mother, who is wiping her eyes, and feels hot tears slip down her own cheeks. "I can't promise I'll come back. But I can tell you I'll do my damndest. I have two boys to come back to, like George wanted me to. And you, Mom. I have you."

Mom nods, and sobs, and tears are sinking into all the lines of her face, deepening them. Winona knows she's aged her mother, and she sobs too, and runs across the kitchen to her arms. "Winnie," Mom gasps into her hair. "Winnie, girl. You have to go?"

"I have to go," Winona chokes out into her mother's shoulder. "My commission, my career, my life. It's up there. I have to." _It's what George wanted for me,_ she doesn't say, because she's trying not to hurt her mother more, but she knows he wanted her to have the stars.

So does her mother, nodding against her hair. "Okay, then. Okay." She pushes Winona back just far enough to look at, and Winona tries to smile with her mouth crumpling under her tears, watches her mother's mouth twist identically. "I don't like it." Winona nods. "But you need to, so, okay. And I don't have to tell you to make me proud. You do. You always do."

"Thank you, Mom," Winona replies, and her mother manages a teary smile before clutching her tightly one more time.


End file.
